Liz gets intimate’ with Whoopi Goldberg  for charity

Liz Smith

Published Thursday March 28, 2013 at 6:00 am

If you think Whoopi Goldberg and I are pals, you’d be right. I have admired this great star and generous personality since she first appeared on Broadway having been “discovered,” so to speak, by the great director Mike Nichols.

I had the gigantic pleasure of leading the charge by the New York Landmarks Conservancy to make Whoopi a “Living Landmark” and at this time I also got to know her partner in business, one Tom Leonardis, a man who knows how to take charge without seeming to. Together, they are a formidable pair.

Now Whoopi has consented to have an open and “intimate” conversation with me on April 9 at an undisclosed Manhattan location. We are inviting the select to join us in this effort to benefit the Maria Droste Counseling Services, which helps people sort out their woes when they can’t afford psychiatric help. Whoopi is interested in such problems and so am I. Our good friend Elizabeth Peabody leads this group and so we hope you will join us. Email Peabody.E@gmail.com for details, or call (212) 889-4042. This is a reasonably priced charity. (You might have heard of this little fundraising group before. We have talked frankly with the likes of Marie Brenner and Pete Peterson, Gail Sheehy, Gail Collins and Christopher Buckley, and last year we had the one and only Bette Midler.)

The “conversation” starts promptly at 6:30 p.m., we’ll give you the location when you contact us, and believe me it will be worthwhile. There are cocktails at 7:15, and then you can be on your way. Incidentally, this isn’t the only charitable contribution the dazzling Whoopi will make this month. On April 30, she is being honored at the Third Annual Namesake Luncheon in the Metropolitan Club, www.publicprep.org.

(But, please buy your tickets to Maria Droste first. Because I’ll be trying to do my stuff in person, with Whoopi, and I still like to score!)

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Thoughts and prayers are with Karen Black, the great queen of cult actresses, who’s suffering from cancer. I don’t know Miss Black’s exact prognosis, but, though weighing only about 95 pounds, she is fighting back.

Karen’s husband, Stephen Eckelberry, is trying to raise money to send Karen to Europe for special treatment. Black has been battling her cancer for two years, and just like ordinary folks, has been pretty much wiped out financially. The website gofundme.com is where you visit if you want to try to contribute a bit to Karen Black’s treatment and travel.